Better to finish in 108050i or 108025p?

I'm working on a documentary shot mostly on a a 1080 50i HDV camera. Until recently, I was working in a 1080 50i HDV sequence (that is to say, I clicked yes when I inserted the first media into the timeline and FC asked me if sequence settings should match footage). A couple months ago I switched to Pro Res, 1440 X 1080, 25 FPS. By 'switched' I mean I changed the compressor to apple pro res 422 and re-rendered. See attached screenshot for full settings.

We got into a festival recently and they accept both 108050i and 108025P HDCAM. My question is, is my sequence currently 50i (I assume so, since that what I shot in) or is it 25P (since the frame rate says 25)?

If it's 108050i -- is there an advantage to converting to 25P for the festival? If so, does anyone have any pointers on the best way to do it?

50i = 50 interlaced fields per second, at two fields per frame = 25 frames per second, so the correct frame rate for 50i is 25 fps.

A two cent opinion: you did the correct thing by switching to Pro Res as your codec, as ProRes will survive color correction/effects/graphics a whole lot better than HDV, and leave the frame rate alone.

Your sequence is (based on the screen shot) interlaced. Note the Field Dominance is set to Upper(Odd). If it is Upper (Odd) or Lower (Even) than it is interlaced. If you had a progressive sequence, it would say "None". Field Dominance give the instruction for which of the two fields to play first when displaying the frame. Since there are no fields in a progressive frame, there is no Field Dominance.

As to deinterlacing and delivering a progressive copy for your submission, since they accept the interlaced, why not deliver what you shot?

Someone else may have a different opinion, but I would go with interlaced.

If the projection equipment can do justice to interlaced, go for it. Each codec translation introduces artifacts. The closer you stay to the original format, the cleaner the final (well, after dealing with the pesky issue of 4:2:0 material - best to get it to 4;2:2 for Color grading/ composting which is what ProRes does for you)

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